Yes, My Darling?
by Celestia0909
Summary: Seraphina Picquery is on a quest to find out more about her father.


"Mama?"

"Yes my darling?"

"Where's my papa?"

Her mother stopped brushing her hair after she asked. Why had she stopped brushing her hair? She didn't say anything for a while and Seraphina worried that she had said something bad - her Mama always warned her to think before speaking, but she _had_.

"Is he dead?"

Her mother sniffled, in the same way that _she_ did when she had the winter blues, "No my darling."

"Then where is he?"

She didn't speak again for a few moments and Seraphina tugged on the sleeve of her mother's dress to get her attention. Sometimes she stared at nothing for a while and didn't say a thing. She didn't know why she did it, but she did.

"He's away on a trip."

"A trip?"

"Yes, a trip." Her mother's hands began brushing her hair again, and Seraphina winced as the brush ran over her knotty hair.

"Where to?"

"To England."

"England?" Her mother nodded. "Is that where we're from?"

"No my darling, we're from somewhere called Kenya. It's a place in Africa. That's where your grandpa was born."

"_Really_? Do you have to get on a ship to go there?"

"Yes you do, it's a very long trip too."

Seraphina nodded. She had never been on a ship, and the longest one she had ever been on was when they'd travelled to New Orleans with the Mistress of the house. Somehow, she suspected that maybe Kenya was farther away than New Orleans.

"Will I ever meet my Papa?"

"Perhaps my darling, perhaps."

* * *

Seraphina stared at the group of children across the street from her being led by a tall, dark skinned woman with a head of hair that looked just like her Mama's. Behind the woman, a group of around ten children, in varying shades of brown, followed her. They all had matching bags and smocks, but in different shades of white and grey.

She had seen them before, almost every morning actually, but it was only recently that she really started to wonder why she didn't go to school with them instead of the white children. She didn't mind the white children at her school, some of them were kind to her, while the others ignored her. But she'd always known that she wasn't quite the same as them - in more ways than one.

"Mama?"

"Yes my darling?"

"Why don't I go to school with them?" Seraphina pointed towards the children on the other side of the road.

Her mother looked at where she pointed, frowned, and suddenly looked incredibly sad. She hadn't meant to make her feel so sad.

"Because you can't, Phina."

Seraphina frowned, she didn't like that answer, "Why can't I?"

"You're not the same as them, it wouldn't be right for you to go to the same school as those children."

"But why aren't I the same as them? I look the same." Seraphina looked down at her hands and pushed her sleeve up along her arm, holding them up to her mother. "See! I'm the same colour as them, Mama!"

"It's not about that my darling, it's something you wouldn't understand yet."

"Does it have something to do with my Papa?"

The frown on her mother's face deepened and a crease appeared between her eyebrows. Seraphina couldn't tell if her mother was angry or sad. And she _definitely_ didn't get why she couldn't understand what she was trying to tell her.

Her mother stopped walking and grabbed her hands as she kneeled down in front of her. People walking by them stared at them and Seraphina waved as one of her classmates walked behind her mother. Actually, even her mother looked different from everyone else around her.

Unlike the people who walked past them, her mother had brown skin - the same colour as her satchel -, black hair, and wore different clothes to everyone else. She also wore a funny looking necklace around her neck, and didn't have gloves or a hat like the other ladies.

Why were they both so different?

"Yes, but I can't tell you anything about that yet. You're too young, you wouldn't understand just yet. I promise I'll tell you when you're older."

Seraphina frowned, her mother looked so serious. She'd only asked why she couldn't go to school with the children who looked like her. Why was she acting like it was something much more complex and difficult than that?

"Do you swear?"

Her mother nodded, "Solemnly."

* * *

Seraphina watched from the carriage as a child kissed her father's cheek. The act was so sweet, so innocent, so full of love - and yet her heart ached upon witnessing the small exchange.

It had been years since she had thought of her father, years since she had asked her mother about him. Mostly, she just forgot about his existence entirely. Why should she waste any more of her time thinking of a man who so clearly didn't want to know her? A man who had never even thought to send a letter confirming his existence? She didn't need to spend any more of her time thinking and pining for a father like that; and yet in the deepest corners of her heart, a father was all she had ever wanted.

Seraphina gasped as the carriage lurched forward and came to a complete stop suddenly. She frowned before looking out of the window once more and smiled at the sight of her childhood home. She hadn't been back since she had graduated from Ilvermorny and her heart soared at the begonias blooming by the porch. She had planted those the summer before she'd started at Ilvermorny.

She paid the carriage driver for the trip, slung her rucksack over her shoulder and began walking towards her home. The air smelt sweet and fresh, the breeze not yet muggy from the summer heat. The end of spring had always been her favourite part of the year in Georgia.

"Mama?" she shouted as she passed the begonias and walked up the stairs to the porch. "Are you home?"

It was odd, she thought, that her mother was nowhere to be found. She had sent a letter two days before informing her of her arrival, and she was _always_ on the porch when she arrived - rain or shine, without fail. Seraphina looked towards the wooden bench by the front window and frowned upon seeing it was empty.

"Mama?"

Nobody answered back and it was then that Seraphina began to feel her nerves fraying. It was a Sunday, and her mother usually never left the house on Sundays. To her, Sundays were a day of complete rest and relaxation. Sunday was a day to honour the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus made for humankind. Sundays were the one day that she could be expected to be found at home - and yet she wasn't.

Seraphina's heartbeat quickened as she walked into the house and set her rucksack down on the ground. The air was stale and dust floated around as she surveyed her surroundings. Her Auror training had equipped her with the skills that would ensure she never need to feel fear on her missions. But this was a fear that she hadn't experienced before, and it was worse than anything she'd felt on the field.

Her mother was the only known family she had, and she didn't know what she'd do if something had happened to her.

"Mama?" she shouted again, although her voice was shaky as she said it.

Something creaked from behind her but Seraphina was too preoccupied to worry about it - it was probably just the wind blowing the gate open and shut. She inspected the living room and noticed that nothing was out of place and there were no signs of a struggle. At least she could scratch off abduction as a possible cause for her mother's disappearance.

"Seraphina?"

She turned away from the living room at the sound of her mother's voice and her heart skipped a beat as relief flooded her veins. For more than a few moments she had honestly believed her mother was dead or gone.

"I thought you would be home."

"I-" Her mother turned back to glance at something outside. "I was visiting someone."

Seraphina frowned, there was something her mother was hiding.

"Who?"

"Nobody you would know, they're new to the town." She smiled forcefully, and shuffled towards her. "Now come and give your Mama a hug."

Seraphina frowned, thought for a moment about denying her mother's request, before she decided against it and walked into her mother's open arms. It was ridiculous of her, a fully trained Auror, to be hugging her mother at her age; but it wasn't as if there were to be any witnesses to her transgression. Or so she thought.

Behind her mother, standing on their porch, was a man that she had never seen before. He was tall, and _white_. Their kind _never_ set foot on this side of town, especially not this close to the river. She stared at him for some time, he was too busy staring at his boots to notice. Seraphina frowned and pulled away from her mother slowly.

"Mother?"

Her mother's arms dropped from around her shoulders and disappeared into the pockets of her apron, "Yes my darling?"

"Who is that man?"

Seraphina's left hand reached into the hidden pocket in her dress and nodded towards the strange man on the porch. She had never seen him before and he certainly wasn't originally from this town, although there was something familiar about the slope of his nose and build. His clothes looked dirty and rough, and he looked as if he'd just finished a long ride.

Her mother turned to glance at the man and her lips pursed. She only ever did that when she was trying to decide whether to lie or not, she had done it when Seraphina had asked whether being able to do magical and odd things were normal. She had lied of course.

"That's Mister Thomas Wilson." At the sound of his name, the man on the porch looked up from his boots and took his hat off, nodding at Seraphina and her mother. He had the same shade of platinum blonde hair as her and Seraphina wondered if having this colour hair was a genetic mutation of some sort.

"Thomas Wilson? Isn't that Old Man Wilson's boy?" Her mother nodded. "Everyone said he was dead."

"Well I ain't," the man, who was supposedly the heir to the Wilson plantation, replied in a deep voice. "That was just a lie he told to cover everything up."

He looked at her mother, frowned, then looked back at her. Yes, there was something very familiar about this gentleman and it could be true that he was Old Man Wilson's boy. After all, he certainly _looked_ a bit like him - but the hair was a puzzle indeed. Old Man Wilson had brown hair, not blonde.

"What lie? Everyone says you died in a train accident."

Nobody answered for a while and Seraphina looked at the strange man and her mother. Did they know each other? Why was he at the house? And why wasn't her mother worried about somebody seeing him?

"Have you told her?" The man asked her mother, his eyebrows crinkled.

Her mother shook her head, "No, I haven't. Maybe you ought to."

Silence again enveloped the three of them, and Seraphina's hand tightened on her wand. There was anticipation and tension and the air and she needed to be ready to protect herself if this man wasn't who he said he was.

"Seraphina ain't it? That's your name?"

"Yes. It is."

"Well Seraphina, I don't know how to tell you this but, I'm your daddy."

Her first reaction was disbelief. How could this be the truth? It was obviously a lie. He couldn't be her father because that would mean that she was a Wilson - related to slave owners who thought that people could be their property. He couldn't be her father because he was white and honestly it was impossible to think that she could be one half of them.

But her second reaction, the one that she knew was the right one, told her that it was true. How else would she be able to explain why she didn't go to the coloured school despite being coloured herself? How else could she explain why sometimes she was invited to tea with Miss Anna Wilson - Old Man Wilson's daughter. She probably knew about the whole thing, which is why she had always been so kind to her.

Years ago she had asked her mother to tell her more about her father, she had done so on multiple occasions. She had expected her father to be someone like them, someone who was the same colour and who was on the same rung on the social ladder. Never in a million years would she have guessed that she was the daughter of a plantation master and slave owner's son.

"You've both got a lot of explaining to do," Seraphina said as she gestured towards the dining table and urged them to explain their story.

* * *

**A/N**

**WORD COUNT: 2198**

* * *

**THE HOUSES COMPETITION**

LIONS, HISTORY OF MAGIC

STANDARD - [Character] Seraphina Picquery


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